


To Choose Among All Earthly Things

by Buffintruder



Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Canon Compliant, Japanese Character(s), M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Post-Canon, Religion, brief allusion to bedlam stacks, language lessons, mori's pov, not actually soulmates, thoughts on the concept of soulmates and destiny, with the first book at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/pseuds/Buffintruder
Summary: Keita Mori, of all people, should have scoffed at the idea of things like destiny, but there was still some temptation to the thought of describing Nathaniel Steepleton as his soulmate.
Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	To Choose Among All Earthly Things

**Author's Note:**

> I used modern Japanese in here because I didn’t feel like researching what Japanese sounded like in the 1880s. Since the novel didn’t seem to be in particularly Victorian English, I doubt it matters much either way. Hopefully the basic meanings should be clear through context and the narration, but I stuck the translations in the end notes just in case.  
> At some point, Thaniel asks if Six is Mori’s kid, which I am taking to mean she is Japanese. Six refers to herself in third person sometimes, which is more of a Japanese language than English language thing as far as I know, but I don't remember if anything else in canon contradicts or supports that. I made her remember some Japanese from her parents just because I felt like it, I don’t know how realistic that is.  
> I wrote this before I read the sequel (which I’ve only just started now), so there might be things here that are contradicted by that.  
> The title is from the song Martinmas Winds
> 
> Thank you to onlythefuturewiththelightson from tumblr for looking over this

Keita Mori, of all people, should have scoffed at the idea of things like destiny and soulmates. He could see the future and frequently knew how things would turn out, but that ability only made him more aware of how nothing was set in stone or beyond human interference.

Even simple decisions, like feeding a stray cat or planting some grass beneath a tree, could change the direction of a life. He could never believe in some greater force controlling everything when he could see futures branching out in front of him, like veins of lightning, leading in countless different directions. There was no such thing as a fated person, no other half, only choices and circumstance and luck.

He knew all this, but there was still some temptation to the thought of describing Nathaniel Steepleton as his soulmate. After all, Mori had known for nearly as long as he could remember that there would one day be someone in London who would understand and care for him like no other, who he would love and be loved by. Assuming that luck didn’t intervene in some way, of course.

But even with this, it was by Mori’s own choice that he crossed nearly half the world to meet Steepleton. He had made the decision to go after  _ him, _ even though there were other possibilities of companionship out there in the world. In the end, despite all Mori’s power and foresight, despite loving him long before they met, Steepleton was not his soulmate, just the person that he had chosen, who he hoped would choose him in return.

Knowing all this did not do much to dampen the anticipation that had been slowly building up the past year at the prospect of finally meeting Steepleton.

Before this moment, he had always had the option to find some other plan to befriend Steepleton if his current one did not end up working. But if he messed up badly enough on their first meeting, it would be too late to change things. Even he couldn’t turn back time. Mori could picture a dozen futures spiralling out in front of him, ones where he failed and drove Steepleton away, ones where he succeeded and Steepleton spent the rest of his life at his side. It all depended on this fast-approaching moment.

The vague wisps of futures, growing clearer with every passing moment, suddenly converged onto a single point, and Mori heard the door to his shop open.

He froze, overcome with a last minute burst of doubt. There was little chance he would do anything irreconcilably terrible here, he told himself, quickly searching through his impressions of the future. Even his hesitation now would not change any major detail of this encounter. The likelihood of it ending poorly was not as high as it felt and there would be no obstacle he couldn’t think or foresee his way around, he told himself.

“Hello?” Steepleton called out. His voice was precisely as Mori knew it to be, yet in life it was far clearer than any of his memories, more alive and distinct.

This was a sound Mori could spend the rest of his life listening to, he thought a little detachedly. That was good. He didn’t want to have chosen a person whose voice he couldn’t stand, though he most likely would not be here now if that was the case.

Mori stood, grabbing the cups of tea he had just finished making, and opened the door to the shop. Carefully fixing his attention on keeping the tray steady, he managed to nod a greeting that he hoped appeared casual.

In front of him was Nathaniel Steepleton, staring at him with vague surprise. Mori had known for ages what this expression would be, had known several options for what Steepleton would say, and had been able to draw some conclusions as to what he would be thinking. Nothing about this moment was unknown, yet all his plans to move to London and find Steepleton had never seemed quite so fragile as they did in this moment.

Steepleton’s flustered expression caused Mori’s heart to squeeze with some gentle affection. He wasn’t bad looking, Mori thought, then pushed away that line of thinking. There was no guarantee that Steepleton would have those feelings for him, and Mori didn’t want to push his luck by hoping too hard for something that might never come to be.

“Oh, er—do you speak English?” Steepleton asked, and Mori stifled the small sigh. It was a reasonable reaction, he knew, having received it so many times. That didn’t make it less annoying, especially when it came from  _ him _ .

“Of course I do, I live in England,” he said briskly, before handing Steepleton a cup. “Tea? It’s horrible outside.”

Steepleton accepted it, studying him with sharp eyes. The slightly harried expression had not lessened despite his careful inspection. Mori forced himself to draw his gaze away. Staring too long would be awkward, and he would have the chance to look at Steepleton plenty later on.

Without his permission, his eyes crept back to Steepleton anyway, taking in more than his face this time. His clothes were dirty and scraped from the bomb he had just escaped from. Blood had seeped into his sleeve, and Mori knew that no lasting damage had been done, but he couldn’t stop the concern leaking into his voice. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m what?” Steepleton glanced down at his arm. “I’m all right. Are you Mr. Mori?”

“Yes,” he said. He knew Steepleton had many questions, but now really was not the time. “I think you ought to come through and—”

“One of your watches—it saved me from an explosion in Whitehall.” Steepleton continued to babble on about the attack and the alarm Mori had set in his watch to save his life, clearly still in shock, judging by the way he rambled.

Mori did his best to herd Steepleton inside, to convince him to take care of his wound and stay the night. He didn’t want to let him go now, when he was injured and still unsteady. Convincing him to stay longer would take a bit more work in the future, but Mori laid the groundwork for it by mentioning the spare room he had for rent. That would do for the moment, his memories of Steepleton asking to live with him growing sharper. 

“Have I told you my name yet?” Steepleton asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mori said neutrally. He was pretty sure this was true, though he couldn’t be entirely sure. He had known it for so long already.

“It’s Steepleton. Nathaniel, but Thaniel if you like. I know it’s a bit... but my father was Nat.”

Mori hadn’t even realized that knowing Steepleton’s name was a concern until a part of him relaxed. It was just a name, and he had written it enough times in his journal that he was hardly going to forget it. Still, he couldn’t quite brush away the relief at knowing this piece of information would not be erased. “I’ll stick to Mr. Steepleton, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“In Japan, first names are only for who you’re married to, or if you’re being rude,” he said. “It sounds wrong to me.” This was only somewhat true. He had spent long enough among English people and familiarizing himself with their culture that their way of using names no longer struck him as strange when speaking their language. But this was Steepleton, and calling him anything else felt far too intimate when Mori wanted so much more from him. 

One day, he promised himself, he was going to call the man Thaniel and mean it.

* * *

“Asagohan wo tsukuru—tsukute, arigatou gozaimasu.” Steepleton stuttered his thanks, gesturing at the plate of eggs and toast Mori had left out for him that morning.

Mori elected to ignore Steepleton’s minor mispronunciation in favor of the bigger mistake. He would have to go over double consonants again, but since Steepleton was far less likely to accidentally insult some important foreign dignitary with that, it was not the most pressing concern. “Iie, iie, tsukutte- _ kurete.” _

“Um,” Steepleton said, looking questioningly at Mori. “Na—naze? Desuka?”

A few futures flashed through his mind. He could try explaining in Japanese why the extra word was necessary, but Steepleton would want more than just a simple answer and his vocabulary was not advanced enough to understand anything Mori could say. Mori preferred not to waste his time trying. “Ato de eigo de iimasu,” he said, gesturing at the clock. He would explain in English later. This was the time of day where they spoke Japanese, and it wouldn’t do any good to break that habit.

He moved the conversation along to matters that were easier to speak of, slipping into English only on the occasion to give brief definitions when necessary.

Eventually Steepleton had to go to work, but when he came back that evening, he circled immediately back to the topic. “So what was that you said this morning? Tsukutte-kurete? That second word is ‘kureru’, right? As in ‘to give’?”

Mori glanced up from the mechanical bird he was adjusting with. “Yes. I  _ gave _ you the favor of making you breakfast. It’s impolite to leave that off.”

“Isn’t that redundant though?” Steepleton asked. “I’m saying thank you, so doesn’t that make it obvious I’m appreciating the favor you did for me?”

“As if English doesn’t have its own redundancies?” Mori said, raising an eyebrow. “Like your constant need to specify who is doing what in every single sentence.”

“Hm, true,” Steepleton said after a thoughtful pause. That was one of the things Mori liked about him. He never clung to his assumptions and biases of the world once they were shown to be incorrect.

“Without the explicit acknowledgement of the favor being done, it sounds demanding,” Mori said. “Like a command to a servant.”

“Oh,” Steepleton said. “Sorry.”

Mori waved it off. “I know you mean no offense by it.”

“Why is Japanese so...” Steepleton floundered for words for a moment.

Mori had a few memories where Steepleton attempted to finish the thought, and he decided to put him out of his misery, latching onto the train of thought before he could forget why he was on it. “Language is more than different words. It’s a way of existing and understanding the world. And in the Japanese mindset, it is very important to be polite and not inconvenience people, or at the very least acknowledge when you  _ are _ inconveniencing them.”

“Like why you’re supposed to sometimes say ‘I’m sorry’ instead of ‘thank you’ when people do things for you?” Steepleton asked.

“Exactly,” Mori said. “And why you can never outright decline an invitation.” That was something he had needed to remind Steepleton, otherwise there was a chance he would annoy someone at the ball.

“You aren’t like that though,” Steepleton pointed out. “I’m way more concerned about taking free favors than you are, and you can definitely be abrupt.”

“It’s a lens to see the world through, not a personality determiner,” Mori said. “You Anglophones aren’t all rude and direct. I’m more polite in Japanese, anyway. English brings out the shameless side of me.”

Steepleton snorted. “I don’t think you need a different language for that.”

Amusement bubbled up in his chest. “I hope so, because I’d hate to see how much more stubbornly polite you would be in Japanese.”

“I’m not that bad,” Steepleton protested.

“Hmm,” Mori said skeptically, turning back to his work to hide a small smile as Steepleton made a face at him.

During his lonely youth, Mori had looked forward to a great many things about his future with Steepleton, but there had never been particular memories of times like this, those moments too small to be of any notice. He had underestimated how much he would enjoy it, the familiarity of easy banter, the sparks of interest in conversations on topics he knew both of them cared about. Mori had gotten on well with people in the past, but this was possibly the first time he had a genuine  _ friend. _

“You’ll see,” he said. “One day you’ll be fluent enough in Japanese to feel the difference.”

Steepleton was quiet for a moment, and Mori spent a moment wondering if he had said something wrong. “Well, hopefully.”

The future held no answers for his question. “How is your kanji practice going?” he asked instead.

“It’s going,” Steepleton said vaguely. “I actually had a question, how do you remember which atsui kanji means what, and why are there two different characters for them when they sound and mean the same?”

“Not quite the same,” Mori said, launching into an explanation.

* * *

Mori was supposed to be having tea with Steepleton at Osai’s, but they had both been rather quiet that morning. Without much to distract him, his thoughts seemed determined to spiral downwards in tight circles.

The thing was, most of the time, Mori was comfortable enough in his powers to appreciate the element of random chance. In the long term, there were many things unknown to him, but few things were ever a complete surprise in the short term unless luck played a part. There were times where this small blindspot was inconvenient, but it often made a nice change of pace from always knowing everything.

Mori didn’t think he had ever hated it as much as he did when Steepleton had gone off to the ball, and suddenly all his memories of the future were filled with some woman called Grace.

She was wealthy and spirited, a scientist with a sharp mind, and a wonderful person, he was  _ sure _ , but he couldn’t focus on any of that when she was also the person who would take Steepleton out of his life.

It was petty to despise her, he knew. Steepleton didn’t belong to him, and Mori had no claims on his time or affections. That didn’t stop the part of him that wanted to shout,  _ I loved him for  _ decades _ , you only want him so you can inherit your house. _ Mori didn’t need his clairvoyance to see that declaration going over terribly.

There had always been a distinct possibility of Steepleton one day finding someone else and moving out, as much as Mori would try to avoid that. The thing that bound them together wasn’t something as simple and certain as red string or destiny, just the fragility of human choice. Mori had just thought he would have more time. They hadn’t even known each other for a month before Steepleton got engaged.

Technically, he could still try to stop the marriage. There was no such thing as destiny, but he could pull on the weft of fate and cause any number of things to go as he wanted. If he searched hard enough, he could make Grace meet some other man who was far better suited to her personality and interests who she would prefer to marry. He could drive something irreconcilable between the couple so they would split up on their own. He could even cause a building to collapse on Grace or something, getting her out of the picture entirely. There was a worryingly large portion of him that was tempted to do just that.

But that wouldn’t be fair to Steepleton. He was benefitting from this arrangement too, and even if he didn’t love Grace yet, Mori could see that one day he would. Mori had no right to come in between that, to be the one doing the stealing.

It was just typical, wasn’t it? Mori thought, frowning at his cup of green tea. Steepleton would be far better off with some white woman, someone more similar to him, who he was expected to be with. He wouldn’t receive any flack from society. He wouldn’t have to hide like he would with some foreign man. Mori couldn’t even blame him when it seemed like most of the world and clearly the universe itself was against them being together.

“You all right there?” Steepleton asked.

“Yes, of course,” Mori lied smoothly. What was he doing, moping about in front of Steepleton? How many more real memories did he have time to make with Steepleton, with just the two of them like this, before he was left with nothing but what-could-have-beens scribbled down in an old notebook?

“Just, you’re glaring at that tea pretty hard,” Steepleton said. “I don’t think it’s nothing.”

_ I’m too old and selfish to be happy with letting you go, _ he thought. “I’m... reminiscing,” he said, knowing exactly what conclusions would be drawn from that.

Steepleton nodded, his eyes sympathetic. “Do you miss Japan?”

“Of course,” he said simply. It was easy enough to switch his more troubled thoughts to the lingering nostalgia that was never too far from the back of his mind. He had always wanted to travel, having left for China the moment he was legally allowed to, and there was a reason he had chosen to go after someone so far away. That didn’t mean he had left nothing behind. And it was far easier to romanticize the place when he was nearly halfway around the world from it. “It’s my home.”

“Why did you come all the way out here then?”

Mori hesitated, finding the best words. “Sometimes, the home you create is better than the one you were born into.” Though of course that no longer seemed to apply as much, with Steepleton getting ready to leave. Maybe he should return to Japan. Find someone else who could stand him and all his quirks. Other people existed out there somewhere, and Mori would probably always be filled with regret over this one man, but that didn’t mean he had to stay lonely forever. He could salvage something out of the rest of his life.

“Tell me about Japan,” Steepleton said softly. He had asked about the place a dozen times before, and he was hardly the first person to be curious about the distant country. This was a different question though, personal in a way that none of the others had been.

With his many secrets, Mori was hardly the most open of people, and talking about something that affected him emotionally was never something easy to do. Yet for Steepleton, he thought he could. There was something in the gentle way that Steepleton looked at him that made Mori certain that being known in this manner would not feel like carving himself open to be dissected. No matter what he said, Steepleton would listen and accept it.

It was too late to go back now, Mori realized suddenly. Before meeting Steepleton, Mori could have moved on from him with only a bit of disappointment and a few regrets at the change of plans. Even though he had quit Ito’s employment and moved across a continent for Steepleton, neither of those had really cost him much. But now that he knew Steepleton, he could not replace him so easily. Mori liked to think he was above getting hung up on one person for his entire life, but that seemed increasingly unlikely.

“I miss the humid summers,” Mori said. He didn’t know quite how to put words to his vague sense of nostalgia. Everything was so different, and he didn’t particularly feel like trying too hard to summarize it all right at this moment, but he could start with small things. “With the air so thick you could barely breathe, and the temperature so hot you felt like boiling.”

“Sounds delightful,” Steepleton said dryly, though it was anything but dismissive. “I understand hating our winters, but at least you aren’t dying in the summer here.”

“This is barely summer,” Mori scoffed. It wasn’t like he had found the overwhelming heat particularly enjoyable while in the middle of it, but now that it was summer without that, it all felt a bit hollow. “I miss the sound of cicadas. I... wonder what color they would be to you.” This was the closest he was currently willing to get to admitting that he had always wanted to take Steepleton back to visit Japan with him one day.

“What do they sound like?” he asked.

“A bit like crickets, but more buzzy,” Mori said. He tried to imitate it.

Steepleton laughed. “Well, I’m getting a kind of grassy yellow, but your voice is normally gold anyway. What else?”

“The food,” Mori said. “I can get some of it here, but it really isn’t the same.”

“If it helps, we could go to the fish market later?” Steepleton offered. “I have rehearsal in a bit, but I’m free for the next couple hours.”

Mori smiled weakly, wishing he could enjoy the prospect of spending more time with Steepleton without the threat of an empty future hanging over him. “I would like that. Your fish can’t beat my squid or sea urchin, and of course some other ingredients are hard to come by, but I appreciate the thought.”

“You eat sea urchins?” Steepleton asked. “Yeah, I don’t think we could find that at the market.”

“I’ll simply have to eat lots when I return,” Mori said without thinking.

“You’re planning on returning to Japan?” Some unidentifiable emotion flashed through Steepleton’s eyes.

“Maybe,” Mori said. “Not anytime soon.” Steepleton still had a few months left before he would move out, after all. And eventually he would drift apart, but there was still a short period of time after he got married when he would remember to visit Mori on the occasion. Besides, the future could still surprise him. There was a chance that something could change, though Mori was far too jaded to hold much hopes for that.

“For good or just a visit?” That was worry there in Steepleton’s tone. Which was unfair because Steepleton would be the one leaving him behind, not the other way around.

“Just a visit,” Mori said because that path offered the least amount of questions. He didn’t know if it was a lie or not yet.

“Oh,” Steepleton said, looking relieved. Mori’s heart broke just that extra bit more.

* * *

Mori appreciated the direct nature of clockwork. It was a series of simple causes and effects, ‘if this, then that,’ without deviation. A thousand complexities could be formed in the intricacies of gears, but even that was so much more predictable than people who could change their minds or be influenced by a hundred outside factors. Clockwork was simply clockwork, and could not deviate on its own.

While he enjoyed the company of other people often and certainly would be lonely without them, it was also sometimes nice to fall into the far easier workings of mechanics, to take his mind off uncertain and uncomfortable things. It was almost meditative, with all his focus on nothing more than puzzling out what to adjust or add in order to get the result he wanted.

The door to the shop opened, and Steepleton walked in, back from a visit with Grace to the house she would be inheriting. Mori looked up. He didn’t feel quite ready yet to trade clockwork for his own messy emotions.

“Okaeri,” Mori said. No English equivalent of welcoming someone home had ever felt as natural to him as it did in Japanese, and it was good practice for Steepleton anyway. Not that Steepleton was ever likely to use or hear that word from foreign dignitaries.

“Tadaima,” Steepleton said in response.

Mori felt the split of a dozen futures, a dozen possible things Steepleton could say to him now, and Mori didn’t want to hear any of them. Everything was about Grace or moving out, and it was the last thing Mori wanted to think about. He adjusted a cog, refusing to show the twist of jealousy that had been biting away at his heart all day.

Steepleton looked at him and paused. “Your roots are more noticeable.”

“What?” Mori asked before his mind quite had the time to catch up. “Oh, my hair. Yes, I was thinking about letting it grow with its natural color.” He hadn’t been until that moment, but now that he was thinking about it, it felt right. He had always been an outsider, and now it was just as obvious externally as internally, part of him thought bitterly. He shoved the thought away because it felt far more like the kind of thing his teenage self would think than someone of his age.

“That’s good,” Steepleton said, because he wasn’t the one being gawked at and pointed at like some exotic bird when he was just trying to live his life. Not that dyeing his hair made all of that go away, but it did help a bit.

“I suppose,” Mori said.

“Why the change?” Steepleton asked, precisely as Mori had known he would. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had even brought any of this up when he knew he didn’t want to try to explain.

All the reasons were tangled up in his mind, and he didn’t entirely know which ones were true and which ones weren’t. There was a chance he would leave England soon, and if he did, he would appear stranger with his dyed hair than without. He felt angry and miserable and extra unwanted attention was something he could feel justified in feeling that way towards. He was simply too tired of caring how others saw him to bother anymore.

“I wanted to try it out,” Mori said.

Steepleton looked at him oddly. “Don’t you know how it will all go just by intending it?”

Mori froze. He had grown too complacent, speaking mostly to people who either didn’t know the true extent of his abilities, or didn’t want to acknowledge it. But Steepleton was clever and observant, and Mori shouldn’t have underestimated him.

“Sorry, that was condescending of me,” Mori said. His abilities were not perfect, and the way individuals interacted with him frequently differed from what he most expected, but that wasn’t the real reason he was doing it.

Steepleton gave him a questioning look but didn’t say anything.

There was a part of Mori that wanted so badly to spill everything, that a vivid memory popped into his head.

“I had so much faith in my own powers that certain things seemed almost like fate,” Mori said in some different timeline. “But you meeting Grace shook the foundations of that in a way nothing ever has, and I can’t change what’s going on between the two of you, or at least I won’t let myself. I feel powerless in a way I never have before, but this is something I  _ can _ control.”

But that would lead to more questions that Mori didn’t know how to answer, so he held back the words.

“It’s hard to explain,” Mori said, because if he couldn’t give his true reasons, Steepleton at least deserved not to be brushed off and lied to.

“Alright,” Steepleton said simply, and Mori felt some strange mixture of affection and sadness. It was nice to know that it was as easy to not talk to Steepleton as it was to open up to him.

* * *

“What are you reading?” Steepleton asked one Sunday afternoon, having recently returned from running errands.

“Hm?” Mori said. “Oh, a history of blacksmithing.”

“You’re always reading nonfiction,” Steepleton remarked as he took the chair next to Mori. 

“Hard to enjoy stories when you remember all the plot twists,” Mori said dryly, glancing up to see Steepleton’s surprised face. He did read fiction sometimes, since it felt like what he imagined rereading a book felt like to others, but he had never gotten as into it as he might have otherwise.

“Oh, I didn’t think...” he said. “That’s—unfortunate.”

Mori shrugged. “I can’t really miss something I never knew. No point in suggesting alternatives, believe me there are none.”

Steepleton shut his mouth.

“Besides, it’s a small downside to my abilities, considering the benefits,” Mori said. He wondered if Steepleton counted as one of these blessings, if his ability really was more positive than negative. Once, he would have said yes without thought, but now he wondered. Was it worth seeking out Steepleton if he then experienced the heartbreak and agonizing nights wishing Grace had never showed up in their lives? He enjoyed these peaceful moments between them, but if he knew they were so short lived, did they still matter?

“Still...” Steepleton said sympathetically. “But how, er, how does your future seeing thing work exactly? You knew what I was about to say just then. Are all conversations boring because you already know what’s going to happen?”

“Hardly,” Mori said, amused and oddly touched by the concern in Steepleton’s voice. “In most engaging conversations, there are a number of different ways a person could respond to each thing that is said, which in turn changes what I say, and so on. It’s rarely a surprise for me to hear what they do end up saying, but I often don’t know precisely what will be said. And anyway, my premonitions are like flashes of memories, so I can more or less tune them out when I want.”

“There was that time I found you out though,” Steepleton said. “When you responded to things I didn’t say.”

“I was tired, and the lines were blurred,” Mori said. Being distraught at his whole future shattering had not helped either. “I couldn’t quite tell what were memories of things that had just happened and what were memories of things right about to come.”

Steepleton opened his mouth to speak when Six burst in from outside. “I caught a frog,” she informed them proudly. “It’s in the flower pot.”

“Very nice,” Mori said.

“Oh, congratulations?” Steepleton said. He looked at Mori. “She’s here?”

“We were working on a watch earlier, but I was giving her a break,” Mori said. He stood up. “Oyatsu ima tabetai?”

Six’s eyes lit up at the mention of treats. “Un, tabetai!”

“Saki te wo aratte,” he said, looking pointedly at her hands. None of his memories showed her getting sick any time soon, but he was still going to make her wash her hands.

“Demo Six no tee wa kirei yan,” she whined, pouting. “Sendemo ee yarou?”

“Uhh,” Steepleton said, glancing between both of them. “Was that last part Japanese?”

“Yarinasai.” Mori gave Six a stern look. She frowned at him, but she trudged to the kitchen sink. “And yes, it’s a very casual form. She said her hands are clean so she thinks that is an excuse to get out of washing her hands. ‘Shinakutemo ii deshou,’” he said, repeating the last part in the standard formal.

Steepleton looked dismayed. “Is this like extremely formal Japanese where I have to learn a whole new set of vocabulary?”

“It was only a few new verbs and nouns,” Mori said. “But no. Her parents came from Osaka, and their dialect is different than the Tokyo one I taught you. I’m sure you found the casual form I used far easier to understand.”

“That’s the place you said you hated, right?” Steepleton asked, and Mori gave a pleased nod. “And yes, you made much more sense than Six.”

“I can teach you a few of the differences if you’re interested,” Mori said. Then he smiled. “You wouldn’t be able to make much sense of my native dialect either. I came from even further west than Six’s parents.”

Steepleton groaned as Six hopped back into the room.

“In a second,” Mori told her, following her into the kitchen to get her the food he had prepared earlier that day. She beamed up at him, and for another second, Mori thought that yes, he had been lucky with his abilities, even in the recent past. Steepleton wasn’t the only good thing to come out of his move here, and even with him, the time they did spend surely counted for something.

Perhaps if he told himself that enough times, he would actually believe it.

* * *

“How much would it cost to commission something from you?” Steepleton asked one evening. “Something like Katsu, but simpler. A clockwork mouse perhaps?”

Mori raised one of his eyebrows, but he knew better than to offer the service for free. He listed the cheapest price he could without getting Steepleton to protest. Judging by the look he was giving Mori, Steepleton was suspicious of the amount anyway, but he made no argument. 

“It will make a fine gift for your sister,” Mori said.

“Yeah.” Steepleton had long since grown accustomed to the way Mori knew things without being given an explanation, and there was not even a moment of hesitation at this. Being able to talk openly without receiving any negative reaction was a breath of relief, though Mori knew it was not one he would be able to enjoy for much longer. “With my nephews moving down here for school, I thought it might be nice to have something to keep her company. I know it’s a bit early to be thinking of Christmas presents, but better sooner than later, you know?”

“Not that you need to plan far out in advance with me,” Mori said. It was still months away, but he had already toyed with a few ideas for Steepleton’s gift.

“I suppose I could tell you on Christmas Eve, and you would still have it ready,” Steepleton said with a small smile. “Convenient. Though no one could surprise you with their gift—or, er, have you ever celebrated Christmas?”

“Mm, once,” Mori said. “I went to a party. And I have a friend who’s sent me a present each year for the past decade or two. It’s not a surprise, but I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” Steepleton said, visibly curious. “Did you celebrate last year?”

“No, my friend was in Peru then—still is, though he should be returning in a couple months.” That would be at least one reason to stick around England for a little past Steepleton’s wedding, Mori thought. It had been awhile since he had seen Merrick, and the man would need some company upon his return. “This was three years ago. Not particularly worth the fuss in my opinion, but I didn’t know many people at the party, and it’s not my religion or traditions.”

“What  _ is _ your religion, if you don’t mind me asking?” Steepleton asked. “I mean you know I’m Church of England for holidays and such, but you never said for yourself.”

“Buddhist,” Mori said. It seemed easier than explaining that there hadn’t been a huge split between ‘Buddhist’, ‘Shinto’, ‘Confucian’, ‘superstitious’, and ‘secular’ while he was growing up, that the distinct divide had only been made more recently.

“Okay, I figured you weren’t—but I didn’t want to assume...”

Mori snorted. “Believe me, I have no intentions of converting to Christianity. It doesn’t seem nearly worth the effort, and I like what I have, thank you very much.” He had a feeling he wouldn’t have been nearly so opposed if people didn’t keep telling him he was a heathen who needed to change his ways to be saved, or if they didn’t all seem to expect him to give up the beliefs he already had.

“Oh,” Steepleton said. “I’ve never seen you do anything...” He waved his hand vaguely in the air as if to encompass the entirety of Buddhist rituals and customs.

“I’m not in Japan,” Mori said. “How can I expect the spirits and ancestors and such to hear me from all the way over here?”

Steepleton stared blankly at him for a moment. “You mean they...can’t?” The words spilled awkwardly from his mouth, and Mori supposed he appreciated that Steepleton was trying to be sensitive about it.

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Mori said. “I suppose if I cared more, I would make an attempt regardless, but...” He shrugged. “There aren’t any temples and shrines here, and any festivals that happen in the Japanese exhibition village are too much for show, anyway. Besides, there’s all sorts of politics wrapped up in everything, and I don’t particularly agree with the more nationalist parts.”

Steepleton nodded.

“I never really prayed much for myself anyway, since I knew it would never do anything.”

“You’re still Buddhist, even if you don’t believe they can do anything?”

“I can’t see anything past death,” Mori said. “Seemed best to cover all my bases, just in case. I don’t want to die and find out all my ancestors are annoyed with me because I didn’t pay them proper respects, or be reincarnated as a bug or something.”

“I see,” Steepleton said, nodding slowly. “I don’t particularly... I don’t really think asking God for help does anything either, but it is sort of reassuring sometimes to think... And I wouldn’t like someone coming in and telling me I’m wrong and that I have to switch to something entirely different either.”

“Yes,” Mori said, though he felt it still wasn’t quite the same. At least Steepleton had the comfort of not truly knowing whether prayers would make a difference or not. Mori knew with full certainty that in bad situations, like the one he was in right now, there was nothing he could rely on to get him out besides his own actions. Since he had decided not to act, there wasn’t anything to be done. Sometimes he wondered if he would have been happier if he was capable of having hope like that.

“It’s different for you though, right? Since you _know_ what will happen?” Steepleton asked, meeting Mori’s gaze. Mori wondered when Steepleton had started knowing him enough to guess the directions his thoughts went. Unless perhaps Mori had simply absorbed the knowledge of the future subconsciously and was reading too much into it.

He nodded.

“Well, you don’t know everything,” Steepleton said thoughtfully. “If random chance is your blindspot, you can’t entirely rule out some higher power who cares about prayers and has control over that.”

“I suppose not,” Mori admitted. If that was the case, he wondered who he had angered enough to throw a wrench into the happy future he had carefully set into motion. Perhaps it was his hubris at believing he could control his fate. “It seems a lot of effort to decide which way Katsu will turn every time. Might explain how sentient he seems at times though.”

Steepleton snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying everything is controlled by some god or whatever, just, you never know is all.”

“It is a possibility,” Mori relented, letting his eyes crinkle slightly. He shook his head slightly. He was far too jaded to place much hope in such things after going this long without.

That didn’t stop him from going to the Japanese village the next day and buying several sticks of incense. Just in case. With Steepleton’s wedding fast approaching, he needed all the luck he could get.

* * *

Mori’s body ached, sore in a way that went beyond physical pain. This had been one of his closer brushes with death, and he certainly had no intentions of ever doing anything like that again.

Despite everything hurting, he wasn’t currently unhappy. His secrets were finally all revealed, and he hadn’t even realized how heavy they were until he released them. He had always considered his ability to see the future to be his biggest secret. Steepleton had known that for months, so he had thought he had shared everything worth sharing.

Except then Steepleton had admitted his feelings for Mori, and that was  _ wonderful _ , one less thing to hide. And then Mori had told Steepleton the truth of his own emotions, that he had come to England for Steepleton. It had been terrifying, and it was only because Steepleton was worried about the extent to which Mori used him that he even dared to admit how much he cared.

Mori had always thought that it was easier to open up to Steepleton than anyone else, but it was one thing talking about unrelated things, and quite another to tell Steepleton the intensity of his feelings for him and hope that he wouldn’t be rejected.

But instead Steepleton was still here, smiling softly at Mori like every single decision that led them to this point had been a good one. Steepleton caught Mori’s gaze, turning slightly pinker, and started to fuss over him instead. Mori didn’t normally like people paying too close of scrutiny to him, but he thought it was also a bit nice to be cared for. That hadn’t really happened much in the past.

“Anyway, I ought to go before they frog-march me out,” Steepleton said, starting to stand up. “I’ll come back in the morning. Don’t go without me.”

“I won’t,” Mori said.

Steepleton glanced at the nurse for a moment, and Mori was suddenly filled with the wild, impulsive desire to pull Steepleton down to kiss him. It was the near-death experience talking, he told himself. He was far too cautious for such things normally. Steepleton reached out his hand, shaking Mori’s with a tenderness that felt far more caress-like than such a gesture normally should.

“Sleep well, Keita,” he said, holding the first vowel flat and clipping the second one short, softening the consonants enough that he almost sounded like a native speaker. He had come a long way in the course of his lessons, Mori thought distantly.

Warmth bloomed in his chest as Mori nodded up at him. He had said that first names were for spouses, that first night. With the look that Steepleton—no, Thaniel—was giving him, he had no doubt that was exactly what he meant by it.

* * *

For the first time in nearly forty years of life, the future felt new to Mori, as he sipped his tea in his house on Filigree Street. He saw a dozen potential paths spiralling out from where he was, futures where he and Thaniel were in love and lived together and were content for the rest of their lives. Not every possibility went along those lines, but the alternatives were dimmer, and Mori did his best to dwell on them only as much as was necessary to make them never come true.

This was not actually a new future, since it had been his biggest dream for nearly as long as he could remember. But having spent the past few months thinking it would never come to pass after all, Mori had a far greater appreciation for it.

In the past, he had taken many aspects of his future for granted. He had wanted to become a clockmaker, and so he had. He had wanted to leave Japan and see the world, so he had. He had wanted Takahiro to stop his abuse, and that had happened too. Few individual things in his future had mattered as much as Thaniel, and Mori had certainly felt his share of anxieties over that, but underlying it all had been a confidence that things would turn out alright in the end. The memories of that life had burned so clearly in his mind that he couldn’t quite believe it wouldn’t come to be.

It had been devastating to see it all go wrong, the hopes he had built come unravelling in front of him.

His time with Thaniel had never seemed quite so precious as it did now, sitting quietly in their house for the first time in days. It was a peaceful moment, both of them lost in their own thoughts, enjoying each other’s presence more than their company. It was a moment that never could have happened again a couple days ago, and yet it was now.

“Oh—” Thaniel said abruptly, cutting off his sentence in a way that made Mori think that if he was a different type of person, he would have cursed. The outburst would have been a sudden interruption to anyone besides Mori.

“Yes?” Mori prompted, though he was already aware of what had caused Thaniel’s distress.

“In all the rush, with Grace—I forgot,” Thaniel said. His face had turned rather pale. “I thought about the house and everything, but my nephews... I can’t pay for their education anymore.”

Mori drew out the possible ways this conversation could go, feeling a little relieved that none of them involved Thaniel deciding to call off his divorce. Not that Mori thought that Grace would take him back anyway, but it was still nice to know that the thought wasn’t even a consideration. 

“I could help with that,” Mori said. He would have to go about this carefully, otherwise Thaniel would reject his offer without a thought.

“I couldn’t possibly let you do that,” Thaniel said, looking exactly as uncomfortable as he had when Mori first offered to let him stay the night. It appeared that even after months in his proximity, Thaniel was still no better at accepting help.

“It’s not for you, it’s for your sister’s children,” Mori said. “And it wouldn’t be my own money.”

This seemed to confuse Thaniel enough for his discomfort to slip slightly. “Then whose?”

“Hmm,” Mori said, taking a moment to arrange his thoughts. “A thief’s. A rather nasty one. I know where he hides his money.”

Thaniel stared at him. “And you’d just take it?”

“He took it first,” Mori said with a shrug. “It would be put to far better use, funding the education of children. I could even use the excess to set up some assistance for other children if that would ease some of your worries.”

Thaniel shut his mouth for a moment. “Okay, but isn’t it dangerous? Wouldn’t the thief want his money back?”

“He won’t catch me,” Mori said, smiling slightly.

“Alright,” Thaniel said after a moment. “But I’m coming along.”

“It’s dangerous,” Mori said automatically. “Even with my abilities, there are always unknowns.” Grace had certainly proved that.

Thaniel raised an eyebrow. “So it’s fine for you to go risking your life? These are my nephews. And I trust you to keep us both safe. I survived two bombs, after all.”

“Fine,” Mori relented. He knew that arguing with Thaniel further would get him nowhere. He would simply have to put up with the questions Thaniel would have when he learned the thief they were after was not some burglar or gang leader, but instead the owner of the factory Six worked at. It would be a good way of leading up to the idea of stealing Six herself. “You certainly keep my life interesting,” he muttered.

Thaniel grinned at him, brighter and sweeter than any memory could be. “Well, someone has to.”

“I’m glad it’s you,” Mori said quietly.

“Me too,” Thaniel said.

* * *

“How was it?” Mori asked.

Thaniel had just come back from signing his divorce papers with Grace, and Mori could see the tension still in every step. Mori wished he had been able to come along for support, but he had written himself a note saying to stay behind. Knowing how much Grace distrusted him, he was not all that surprised to learn that proceedings would be smoother without his presence. 

“You already know the answer to that,” Thaniel said dryly as he sat down in the armchair next to Mori’s.

“I still have to ask, otherwise I won’t,” Mori said. 

“It went about as well as you could expect,” Thaniel said with a sigh. “Very quick. Her father glared at me a lot.”

There was nothing Mori could say that would make anything better, or erase any of the times Mr. Carrow had hurt Thaniel in the past, but he fought off the urge to find some indirect way to enact revenge on him. Thaniel wouldn’t want that, and since it wouldn’t change the past or future, Mori wasn’t even sure if he really wanted that.

“And...” Thaniel sighed. “Grace made a few implications that you were controlling me, as usual.”

_ Clockwork man, _ came the whisper of memory from a different timeline where Mori had asked further, the words quickly fading away as soon as he decided not to push.

Mori hesitated. He could see the vague outline of the rest of the conversation laid out before him, and he almost didn’t want to start it, but he knew they needed to have it. “Don’t you ever worry that I’m manipulating you into this? I could, you know. Use my abilities to figure out the perfect thing to say to make you want me, with no more effort than a bit of mental trial and error.”

Thaniel raised an eyebrow at him. “And do you?”

“No,” Mori said. “Well, mostly no. I sometimes... make conversations smoother. But I don’t seek out ways to make you do what I want. One of the reasons you are my friend is because you won’t find me rude or off-putting, even if I don’t muddle my way through a dozen timelines to find the best responses. I’d hardly want to put in that level of effort to keep you around if I had to do that all the time. But I could also just be saying that to appease you.”

“You’re bothered by what Grace said, aren’t you,” Thaniel said with a sigh. He reached out for Mori’s hand. Mori accepted it, enjoying the wonderfully solid nature of it.

“Yes,” Mori admitted. There was a part of him that feared he  _ was _ the kind of manipulator that Grace and Matsumoto seemed to think he was. One of the qualities that had made him choose to want Thaniel was that Thaniel would actually like him, but didn’t that just mean he was easily taken in? Anyone who would view Mori with the suspicion that he probably deserved would never have been an option to befriend.

“You’re not special,” Thaniel said bluntly, and Mori blinked. “Well, I mean you are, obviously. But what I mean is that, well, anyone could be manipulating me. My sister didn’t  _ know  _ that her husband didn’t just want her for sex or household labor. And for all Grace knew, I was marrying her purely for her money and would throw her under a bus at the nearest opportunity.”

Mori bit back a comment. A memory of a future popped into his head, one where Thaniel told him that even if he didn’t love Grace, he still had liked her a lot, and Mori didn’t need to hear that out loud.

“Every relationship is a risk, you just have more means of doing it than regular people,” Thaniel said. “I’m choosing to trust you though.”

If he was a less selfish person, he might have argued against that, but how much did the technicalities of free will matter when they both would spend their lives happily? And Thaniel would be happy with him, Mori could see. Even if worst came to worst, if there ever came a time when luck changed some important factor, like with Grace, Mori at least knew he was capable of letting Thaniel go as well.

“Thank you,” Mori said quietly. “I will do my best to live up to that.”

“Do you ever feel like you had no choice with me?” Thaniel asked. “You must have given up a lot of other good futures too.”

“No,” Mori said. “I...can’t say precisely what my life would have looked like if I had never known you, though I’m sure my journal can offer quite a few possibilities. But I chose you too. I spent a lot of my childhood dreaming of friends I could have, people who could understand and care about me, that I would be happy spending the rest of my life with. You weren’t the only face that showed up.”

“Oh,” Thaniel said thoughtfully. “I’d ask, but you can’t remember any of them, can you?”

“No,” Mori said. “And I didn’t think to write any of them down at the time.”

“Well,” Thaniel said. “Then it wasn’t fate pushing us together, except maybe in the vaguest sense of ‘undefinable happenstance’, nor was it one person forcing this. We chose each other, and I think I like that best of all.”

Mori smiled. “Me too.”

Thaniel snorted. He glanced at Mori then stood up suddenly. “Let’s go out,” he said, and the immediate future shifted course. “We can’t get married, but... well, I still have that last weather vial you gave me.”

“Of course,” Mori said, already standing up to get his coat.

It was drizzling lightly outside as they walked the streets, shoulder to shoulder.

“I know I mentioned marriage, but I didn’t necessarily mean this to be like a wedding,” Thaniel said abruptly, looking rather nervous.

“I know,” Mori said. “Vows of commitment don’t mean as much to a psychic anyway. I can see you don’t plan on leaving. Though,” he added with a bit of consideration, “I suppose I should reassure you that I have no intentions of leaving you either.”

Thaniel huffed out a laugh. “No, I could guess, given that you moved countries just to meet me. And we can’t get the legal benefits either, but... I’d like to do this with you, regardless. Something that symbolizes a new beginning, after all the endings.”

They approached the nearest accessible tall building, climbing up the stairs all the way to the roof.

“Why did you give me this, of all presents?” Thaniel asked.

“I wanted to do something for you that only I could give,” Mori said. He smiled slightly. There was a petty part of him that was smug that his wedding gift to Thaniel would be used to celebrate his divorce. “I am a bit arrogant like that.”

“Well, if I minded, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” Thaniel came to a stop at the edge of the roof, looking out across the city. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the final vial. He met Mori’s eyes and raised the vial as if in toast. “To better beginnings.”

He uncapped it, letting its contents spill out into the wind.

After a moment he lowered his hand. “This isn’t the most dramatic gesture, with the wait. I didn’t really think this through.”

“I don’t mind waiting if it’s with you,” Mori said. It was too dark to really tell, but he had a feeling Thaniel’s cheeks had turned a bit pink.

“I’m glad I chose you,” Thaniel said quietly. “You said I would have been happy with Grace, and maybe, but... I’m still glad it’s you.”

Thaniel leaned against him, grasping his hand. The weather was bitingly cold this late into the year, and all his layers were not enough to stop Mori from wanting to shiver. It helped to have Thaniel’s warmth against his side, comforting and steady. The silence stretched between them, but Mori didn’t mind.

“Look,” Mori said after a few minutes. “I think the clouds are starting to part there a bit.”

Through a gap in the heavy darkness shone a couple stars, just barely visible.

“Is anybody watching?” Thaniel asked.

Mori smiled and shook his head.

“Good,” Thaniel said, reaching out to kiss him.

Mori leaned into it, grabbing onto the front of Thaniel’s coat. They had agreed this wasn’t really a ceremony, but it still felt like sealing a pact. Even though Mori had known for a long time that he would love Thaniel and do his best to build a solid relationship with him for the rest of his life, it was quite another thing to express that.

Whether their fate had been written in the stars, or they had beat all odds to be together, or if chance and choice had simply happened to line up in this way, Mori didn’t care. This was everything he had wanted from the future, and in this moment he couldn’t have asked for anything more.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to the book _The "Greatest Problem": Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan,_ which I read to write a grand total of one sentence in this fic. I mention this because I usually dislike research, so this is probably the most effort I ever have or ever will put in for fic accuracy, and that deserves some sort of commemoration.  
> There was a lot going on about what counts as a religion and what the role of the government should be in regards to that, and how best to use religion to unify a Japanese identity and support the emperor/state while still appearing ‘civilized’ by Western standards. In this fic, I said a more distinct divide had been created between various religions/philosophies/whatever around this time, but it’s more that these things were being redefined under Western terms and (especially in the case of Shintoism) being reworked, and the debate on how to separate things and where to draw the lines was still ongoing in 1884. 
> 
> Translations for the Japanese  
> “Asagohan wo tsukuru—tsukute, arigatou gozaimasu.” Thank you for make—making [in an incorrect form] breakfast.  
> “Iie, iie, tsukutte-kurete.” No, no, making [in the correct form].  
> “Na—naze? Desuka?” Wh—why?  
> “Ato de eigo de iimasu.” I’ll tell you later in English.  
> Kanji—a type of Japanese characters  
> Atsui—hot
> 
> “Okaeri.” Welcome home [casual]  
> “Tadaima.” I’m back
> 
> “Oyatsu ima tabetai?” Do you want to eat snacks now?  
> “Un, tabetai!” Yeah, I do!  
> “Saki te wo aratte.” Wash your hands first.  
> “Demo Six no tee wa kirei yan. Sendemo ee yarou?” But my hands are clean. Isn’t it fine if I don’t?  
> “Yarinasai.” You have to.  
> “Shinakutemo ii deshou.” Isn’t it fine if I don’t?


End file.
